Walpole Park revisited ...

Back in the dark days of January I wrote an article (Walpole Park and my dog-walking worries) bemoaning the loss of much of our local park and expressing some doubt as to whether the council would deliver it back to the good citizens of Ealing in line with their rather vague deadline of early 2014.

Serious progress has been made, but ... there is an I-told-you-so coming ... it's so not finished, and I think we've sailed way past that early 2014 deadline - and then some.

This:

... has happily become this:

But we still can't get in to enjoy it: the blur to the right hand side is due to my having snapped the shot through a gap in the railings that still divide the park.

And whilst there's a lot of heavy plant moving around it was impressive yesterday to see how many people were catching the rays and making the most of the green space that was available to them. I think it's a special talent that we have developed here in London. We may not know much about a lot of things, but we certainly know how to rock a lazy afternoon in the park.

Just look at this kindergarten class who've swapped their classroom for the blue sky and the leaf canopy overhead. And, seriously, when did you last see such a cool multi-baby buggy? What a mothership!

This chap was happily playing riffs on his guitar beside the chain-mail fence that chops the park in two:

And these folk were just laying back in the grass working on their sun tans:

And, best of all, the funny bits where it looks like they've dug up the grass for no good reason are being cultivated as wild flower meadows. Next year I look forward to celebratory picnics on sunny afternoons when the cornflowers, the poppies and the clover will be in bloom. It's going to be epic!

They're busy building a new play area for the little people, which looks pretty amazing too. Emi and his chums will have a ball playing there when it's all done and dusted.

They've planted gazillions of roses and shrubs along the pathways, and it's all shaping up to look rather splendid.

Over in the adjoining Pitshanger Manor, one-time country get-away of the famous architect, Sir John Soane, they're hosting an art exhibition. It seems an appropriate venue given Soane's connections: back in the day he entertained art-world luminaries such as JMW Turner in this place.

And the great thing about it is that it's an exhibition of local artists who want to get their names out there. You can pop along until 21st June, admire the work on view and buy it if it really takes your fancy. It's Ealing's answer to the Summer Exhibition over at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly, and I think it's great that we have a showcase for our local talent.

And that's something that chimes with the ethos of the park behind: it's the people's park and is something that just about everyone in the area feels they have a stake in. Just take a look at the number of trees and park benches that are dedicated to the memory of loved ones who have passed away.

I'm sure all the work will all be worth it in the end, but for now I'd just like it to be over so that we can let our dogs and our children race around without having to worry about them getting run over by a JCB.

All the best,

Bonny x


As shared on SYC , Little things Thursday and Good Fences

Happy Saint Patrick's Day !

The very top of the morning to you all! May Saint Patrick smile upon you, and send his blessings to your door.

My mother says that if it's nice on 17th March, it's because the good saint has interceded with the Big Boss to make sure that his feast day is dry and fine; he's turned the sunny side up, and that's a sign that the rest of the spring will be fine. Well, this morning, I'm happy to report that the weather is pretty glorious here in London.

It's a really big day back home. They have a bank holiday with all sorts of music, parties and parades. But over here in England it's just another day, and I always feel out of step as a result. It's like when you know you really ought to be doing something else, and you can't help but feel uncomfortable because you're not getting on with it. Well, deep down in my DNA, I know that I really should be having a huge, all-day party today, but instead I'm doing the school run and going about my business as normal. Pah! That sucks!

As a B-plan I'm going to have a little supper party tonight for my nearest and dearest. We can't get too exuberant as tomorrow's a school day, but I'm sure we'll make the best of it.

I've bought a side of Irish smoked salmon as a starter. Then we'll have boiled ham with colcannon, and finish off with some old fashioned rice pudding, flavoured with vanilla and a bay leaf or two. It's not very flashy, but it's honest Irish food.

In case you'd like to make something Irish in honour of our patron saint, or just for the fun of it, I'll give you the low-down on how to make Colcannon, the dish that, without a doubt, has kept generations of our ancestors alive. It's the ultimate comfort food, about which songs have been sung and poems have been written over the years:

Did you ever eat colannon
When t'was made with yellow cream
And the kale and praties blended
Like a picture in a dream?
Did you ever scoop a hole on top
To hold the melting lake
of the clover-flavoured butter
Which your mother used to make?

Yes, yes, yes and yes again! Well, ok, my mum didn't actually make the butter, but I can certainly tick all the other boxes.

Colcannon

Anyway if you'd like to make this potato nectar here's what you need and here's how to do it:

Ingredients for 4 people

3/4 lb/ 350 g kale or Swiss chard (you could use Savoy cabbage, but I prefer the flavour of kale)
1 1/2 lb/ 775g potatoes
50 ml double cream or crème fraîche
(I prefer the flavour of crème fraîche, but it's not very authentically Irish!)
50 ml milk
1 large spring onion chopped finely
1 oz/ 25g butter
200 g bacon lardons

Method

1. Wash and peel the potatoes. Place in boiling water and cook until soft enough to mash.
2. Wash and chop the kale. Steam it for a couple or three of minutes. I usually do this over the saucepan with the potatoes in. When cooked drain off excess moisture on some kitchen paper and set to one side.
3. Fry the bacon lardons, drain of excess fat on some kitchen paper and set to one side.
4. Very, very finely chop the spring onion.
5. Roughly mash the potato, add the chopped spring onion, cream and milk and mash some more until they reach a puree texture. Season to your taste.
6. Add the steamed kale and mix so that it's evenly distributed throughout the potato.
7. Serve with the bacon lardons sprinkled on top.

Enjoy!

Bonny x

Stange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance at the National Gallery

I toddled along to have a look at this exhibition yesterday. It's interesting for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is the art.

They say that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and one of the themes that the exhibition explores is how, here in Britain, there has been a general prejudice against German art. It is suggested that the strained relations between the two countries over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in the wake of the First and Second World Wars, is partly to blame for this attitude.

Also in operation is our love affair with the Italian Renaissance - Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, anyone? And our, in my view, unfair perception that the German Renaissance was its poor relation. Anyone of that way of thinking should make straight for room 4 of the exhibition, which displays the works of Hans Holbein (the younger), Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach (the elder).

As a counterpoise to all this negativity there must have been a period when the art of the Northern Renaissance and the German Reformation struck a real chord with the English people. After Henry VIII became head of the English Church and led his people away from Rome I'd have expected there to have been a certain sympathy for the German Masters and perhaps even a shared Protestant aesthetic. Perhaps this underlies the emergence of Hans Holbein as the official court painter to Henry VIII, and his enduring popularity here in England, borne in no small measure of his iconic depiction of his patron king. Included in the exhibition is his exquisite miniature painting of Anne of Cleves, which played its part in paving the way for Henry's disastrous marriage to a woman that he never found comely. 

The final room of the exhibition is interactive, allowing visitors to vote and leave comments on how they feel about what they have seen. I hope that the National Gallery will let us know the general consensus in the fullness of time, and I hope it will show us to be more open-minded than the trustees of the gallery were way back in 1856 when they sold 37 early Westphalian works from the Krüger collection on the basis that they did not fit in with 'the present state of the gallery'.

The exhibition is running in the Sainsbury Wing until 11th May.

Enjoy!

Bonny x

Chiswick House, Camellia Festival

The gardens at Chiswick House are pretty close to the top of my hit-parade. I love just about every aspect of the place from the wonderfully formal statuary and topiary, to the lake with its little classical bridge, to the funky, modern cafe where they serve tip-top cappuccinos.

They were originally laid out by Lord Burlington and William Kent in 1729, marking the inception of the English Landscape movement and are believed to have been the inspiration behind other spectacular landscapes such New York's Central Park.

And, right now, if you should venture over in that direction you will also have the wonderful Camellia Festival to enjoy. It runs throughout the month of March.

As it happens Chiswick House has one of the oldest collections of camellias in the western world. They are housed in a splendid conservatory that was built back in 1813 by the Sixth Duke of Devonshire.

Chiswick House Conservatory, London

His first idea had been to grow exotic fruits there. He tried his hand at figs, peaches and grapes.

Interior, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

Different rooms within the huge building were kept at different temperatures to suit the Duke's delicate fruit, and to make them crop at a rate that would feed consumption over a stretch, rather than all ripening together and having to be made into jam! They think that he may even have had a stab at growing pineapples, the absolute height of decadence, in the end pavilions.

By 1828, however, the Duke had been seduced by another exotic newcomer: the Camellia, newly discovered from China, and regarded as the ultimate in garden chic. Sea captains were bringing them over, no doubt with cargos of Camellia Sensis leaves (that'll be tea to you and me) to sell to the nurserymen, who then sold them on to the gardeners of the aristocracy.  Before long the Duke had amassed a stunning collection, some of which, including the famous Middlemist's Red, still survive there today.

Middlemist's Red, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

Middlemist's Red, Chiswick House Conservatory, London
200 year-old camellia

Middlemist's Red, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

Yes, I know - Middlemist's Red is pink! But let's not be sectarian about our reds versus our pinks. It is, after all, a lovely, deep, dusty, thoroughly well-bred sort of a pink.

Middlemist's Red Camellia, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

John Middlemist, who cultivated collectible plants at his nursery in Shepherd's Bush, is believed to have imported this beauty from China in 1804. It was originally planted at Kew, but in the 1820's the Sixth Duke acquired it, and brought it over to live at Chiswick. There is only one other known example of this variety, which is growing in New Zealand.

Can you just imagine what sort of a tale it would tell, if only it could talk?

I spent a very happy hour pottering around in this magnificent conservatory, enjoying the perfect beauty of the camellias, inhaling the sweet smell of narcissi and hyacinths, which have been artfully arranged throughout, and savouring the tentative warmth of the sun, whose rays were amplified through the glass windows so that they almost persuaded me to shed my coat. It was sublime.

 I loved the stripy flowers, the deep red flowers, the delicate pink flowers and the impossibly perfect white flowers.  They made me think of Coco Chanel, who's probably the most famous camellia-devotee of them all. The story goes that her lover, Arthur "Boy" Capel presented her with a beautiful bouquet of camellias in 1912, whereupon they immediately became her favourite flower.

And, as I'm very happy to take my style lessons from Coco Chanel, all I've got to say on the subject is, "Vive la Camellia!'

The flowers are open for viewing until 30th March from 10:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. every day except Monday. Admission is £5. You can find out all about them here: Camellia Festival

Enjoy!

Bonny x

The Great War in Portraits

This morning I took myself off to see this exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. 

It sets out to tell the story of the Great War using the portraits of those who endured it. As someone who enjoys the tiny detail of history and is fascinated by how the great events impacted on the small lives of ordinary people, I found the exhibition deeply moving. Like many of my generation I find the scale of the sacrifice difficult to fathom, and the nitty gritty of the politics that led the world to war even more so. But here in the faces of the sitters is a story of bravado and pathos, triumph and despair, sacrifice and suffering that anyone can read. 

Of course the Great War shouldn't just be remembered from the Allies' perspective, which is something that the exhibition recognises. They have also included material that speaks of the experience of some of those on the other side as well. We see German soldiers, maimed and wounded by the British artillery, struggling with improvised gas masks and broken by the shackles of a truly devastating war. It reminds us that the suffering was universal, and the pain felt pretty much the same whichever uniform you happened to be wearing at the time.

 They have also included portraits of some of the women such as Mata Hari and Edith Cavel whose extraordinary stories live on in the popular imagination. And for my money Mata Hari looks every bit as exotic and mysterious as you'd expect her to.

Technologically, socially and politically we've come a long way in the intervening century, but here and there you catch a glimpse of something that looks disturbingly contemporary. Sometimes it's in the brush strokes of a painter whose style feels thoroughly modern, or it's in the expression of a young man whose reaction is one with which we can empathise immediately. This isn't just some dry treatise on a long-forgotten saga; it's populated by real people, who have only just slipped outside the hand-chain of first-hand living memory, and with whom I could identify at once

On one wall there is a huge montage of individual photographs, where celebrated flying aces, famous war poets, nurses, spies, prisoners of war, men shot for supposed cowardice and men celebrated for their undoubted bravery stand shoulder to shoulder. Clearly it is a modern construction, but it allows each one the dignity of his or her own space on the wall with a short bio to tell his or her story. I found this wall mesmerising, and I could have spent hours looking into the faces of the people shown there and reflecting on their stories.

This photo (below) was one of many that touched me. The happy-looking, handsome, young man is Private William Cecil Tickle, who volunteered for service despite being underage. He was killed in action on the third day of the Battle of the Somme, and his remains were never recovered. The hand-written inscription shown on the photograph is by his mother.  Almost a century later I could still feel her grief when I read how she'd described him as 'Mother's Billie Boy ... age 18 years ... one of the very best'. What an ocean of sadness must lie behind that simple epitaph.

And here's another handsome young man with an incredible life story. This is Lt. Walter Tull, the 'first person of Afro-Caribbean heritage' to become an officer in the British Army. Walter was born in Folkstone in 1888. His grandfather had been a slave. He joined up when war broke out in 1914, served in the Somme and was promoted to lieutenant in 1917, despite military law proscribing anyone 'of colour' from becoming a commissioned officer. He must have been a truly amazing soldier, who had to fight a whole other battle against the prejudice of the day to win his promotion. Walter was killed in action on 25th March 1918, and his remains were never recovered either. 

Entrance to the exhibition is free, and it runs until 15th June, 2014. Do go if you get a chance. It's well worth the effort.

Bonny x

The Spring Knitting and Stitching Show

I don't know about you, but I love a good knitting and sewing show. I love getting to meet all those arty, creative people who share my passion for textiles and wool. I love seeing all those glorious fabrics and yarns, and dreaming about what I could sew/knit/crochet them into. I love a good day out with a couple of friends in tow, a spot of lunch thrown in, and the odd coffee to sip along the way as we take the weight of our feet for a well-earned rest after all that heavy browsing.

If that sounds like your sort of thing too, then you seriously need to check out the forthcoming Spring Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia.

They promise to have over 200 companies exhibiting their wares along with lots of workshops in everything from quilting and dressmaking to crochet.

You can check it out here :-

The Spring Knitting and Stitching Show

Put the date in your diaries: 13th to 16th March at London Olympia, and maybe I'll see you there.

 Bonny x

Honoré Daumier at the Royal Academy of Arts

One of my very favourite places in London is the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly.

Do you know it? If you don’t, you can find it here: Royal Academy of Arts

I joined up as a friend way back when I first moved to London, and I can honestly say that I’ve learnt more about art within the walls of Burlington House than they ever managed to teach me at school.

These days I’m a huge fan of the visual arts and of art history, but when I arrived in the Big Smoke for the first time I didn’t know a whole lot about any of it. You see I’d grown up in a very rural corner of the world where we didn’t have a lot of access to museums and art galleries. At school I’d taken maths and the sciences to A-level so I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to lose myself in fine art.

All that changed, big time, when I  came to live in London. One of the many, many things I love about living here is having such fabulous art collections on my doorstep.

The Royal Academy is special, however, as its exhibitions encourage you to focus on stuff that you may not have paid much attention to before. I’ve discovered so many fabulous artists just by going along and having a look.

At the moment they have an exhibition up in the Sackler Galleries of the work of Honoré Daumier.

‘Who he?’ you ask.

I’ll confess that I’d never heard tell of him before either, but I can tell you he was a total Rock Star of a painter. He lived from 1808 to 1874, and his work reminded me very much of that of my great hero William Hogarth in that he saw things from the perspective of the little man/ woman, the normal guy, rather than the Duke or aristocrat. His work is infused with sympathy for the working poor. His brush strokes are brave and sparse, and painted with the satirical eye of a Hogarth, and in many ways anticipating the work of the impressionists.

I won’t talk on about his work, because you can read all about it on the RA website from people who know far more about him than I do, but, if you get a chance, do pop by and have a look for yourself. You’ll discover a fascinating window into the prejudices and pre-occupations of people living in nineteenth century France, but please go soon, as the exhibition closes on 26^th January.

Enjoy!

Bonny x

The gardener stirs from her winter slumbers

What a lovely day we had yesterday in West London. The sun shone, the sky was blue, the temperatures were mild and, all of a sudden, it felt positively spring-like, which was a bit mad given how the day before we’d been hiding indoors from hailstones the size of Mint Imperials.

Anyway, I have a confession to make: I’m still a country girl at heart. I grew up in the beautiful rolling hills of South Tyrone, and every spring-time, when the sap starts rising in the hedgerows, I get a rush of something primitive in my veins that drives me out into the garden.

I know. I know. ‘Steady on, it’s only the middle of January,’ I hear you say, but yesterday’s burst of primal enthusiasm produced enough momentum to turn the pot of gloom that resides in my front porch into a pot of something approaching welcome cheer.

The problem is, at this time of the year, the garden centres and plant sellers don’t have much to offer in the way of plants for creating pots of welcome cheer. All the red and white Christmas cyclamens and berry-laden plants have gone, and there’s not a whole load of anything colourful left behind to use until the spring bulbs make their debut.

In the end I got some sweet little matching/ clashing garden primroses from the flower stall just outside Sainsbury’s in West Ealing. I’m very keen on matching/ clashing pinks, reds and oranges at the moment. But the resulting ensemble is only OK rather than eye-catching. I’ll blame the lack of choice for my failure to deliver pizzazz, and move on quickly without a photograph.

On our mini-plant hunt Maxi and I trawled through the Osterley Park, Wyevale (dog-friendly – hip hip hooray!) garden centre, where they have quite a decent half-price sale on pretty nearly all of their outdoor plants. We came home with this little trove: a blackcurrant bush, a loganberry bush, a white clematis that promises to have attractive coppery leaves, a buddleia bush that promises to attract swarms of butterflies in summer, a bag of seed potatoes, a tray of curly kale plants and some seeds for salad greens.

I’m looking forward to making preserves with the loganberries and blackcurrants.  I’m already imagining a rich blackcurrant jam, delicately flavoured with star anise and a hint of vanilla … . Hopefully they won’t wither and die in the meantime, or chose to do all their fruiting when I’m on my summer holidays!

We’ve already planted the white clematis to grow through the (rather bare) under parts of an old climbing rose that’s gone a bit leggy at the front of our house. With any luck it will do a good job of hiding the ‘bald’ bits.

Every year I get a few seed potatoes and plant them in patio containers to harvest in June/ July. It's like some kind of earth-magic how they multiply and grow in the soil when no one's looking. You see, you can take the girl out of Ireland, but you can’t take the Irish potato-mania out of the girl!

My garden isn't huge, but it's big enough for me to grow a few crops of this and that for the kitchen, which I find hugely satisfying. I love to be outside surrounded by greenery and birdsong. It's such a great stress-buster, and I've noticed that Emilio, my eight year-old son, gets a bit of a buzz out of it as well.

I've just learnt on my travels about the 'Edible Garden Show', a not-to-be-missed event that's taking place at Alexandra Palace from 28th to 30th March.

'Perfectly timed for the beginning of the growing season, the show is buzzing with tips on keeping bees, raising chickens, brewing beer, saving energy, mouth-watering baking and dishing up delicious meals using home-grown ingredients,' according to the website.

Sounds good to me!

You can check it out for yourself here: Edible Garden Show

Anyway, happy gardening, and maybe I'll see you at Ally Pally come March!

Bonny x